III

If all that our weak knowledge titles virtue, be
(High Truth) the best resemblance of exalted Thee,
    If a mind fix’d to combat fate
With those two powerful swords, submission and humility,
    Sounds truly good, or truly great;
Ill may I live, if the good Sancroft, in his holy rest,
    In the divinity of retreat,
  Be not the brightest pattern earth can show
    Of heaven-born Truth below;
  But foolish man still judges what is best
    In his own balance, false and light,
    Following opinion, dark and blind,
    That vagrant leader of the mind,
Till honesty and conscience are clear out of sight.

IV

And some, to be large ciphers in a state,
Pleased with an empty swelling to be counted great,
Make their minds travel o’er infinity of space,
  Rapt through the wide expanse of thought,
  And oft in contradiction’s vortex caught,
To keep that worthless clod, the body, in one place;
Errors like this did old astronomers misguide,
Led blindly on by gross philosophy and pride,
    Who, like hard masters, taught the sun
    Through many a heedless sphere to run,
Many an eccentric and unthrifty motion make,
  And thousand incoherent journeys take,
    Whilst all th’advantage by it got,
    Was but to light earth’s inconsiderable spot. 
The herd beneath, who see the weathercock of state
  Hung loosely on the church’s pinnacle,
Believe it firm, because perhaps the day is mild and still;
But when they find it turn with the first blast of fate,
    By gazing upward giddy grow,
    And think the church itself does so;
  Thus fools, for being strong and num’rous known,
  Suppose the truth, like all the world, their own;
And holy Sancroft’s motion quite irregular appears,
    Because ’tis opposite to theirs.

V

In vain then would the Muse the multitude advise,
  Whose peevish knowledge thus perversely lies
    In gath’ring follies from the wise;
  Rather put on thy anger and thy spite,
    And some kind power for once dispense
  Through the dark mass, the dawn of so much sense,
To make them understand, and feel me when I write;
  The muse and I no more revenge desire,
Each line shall stab, shall blast, like daggers and like fire;
  Ah, Britain, land of angels! which of all thy sins,
    (Say, hapless isle, although
    It is a bloody list we know,)
Has given thee up a dwelling-place to fiends? 
    Sin and the plague ever abound
In governments too easy, and too fruitful ground;
     Evils which a too gentle king,
     Too flourishing a spring,
     And too warm summers bring: 
   Our British soil is over rank, and breeds
   Among the noblest flowers a thousand